1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for providing various types of purchase support when customers purchase merchandise via a network such as the Internet or World Wide Web.
2. Description of the Related Art
The number of customers of retail stores who possess personal computers has increased in recent years. Many of them have become able to access a computer network service that provides a connection to the Internet and World Wide Web (hereinafter called WWW). A customer of a store can purchase merchandise on line via the WWW at a place where a personal computer is installed without moving from his home. In other words, an Internet shopping service is beginning.
This service is provided not only by existing general retail stores but by manufacturers and shopping malls as well. While manufacturers sell merchandise directly to customers, and shopping malls formed to provide space for a number of different industries and merchandise sell merchandise to customers, a system or service that carries out such a sales-related task as order intake, settlement of payment and customer management on behalf of the manufacturers or the shopping malls has been provided.
In such a system, when a customer selects merchandise he wants to purchase from among merchandise which can be purchased, he selects merchandise from a voluminous merchandise catalog and purchases it. In order to realize this system, the party that provides the shopping service (hereinafter called store) provides the customer with information on the specifications, appearance and so forth of merchandise, and provides an interface to retrieve merchandise information by designating the kind, name, type and so forth of the merchandise the customer wants to purchase.
A sales supporting system wherein customers' tastes and demands are accumulated as customer information, matching of the customer information with the merchandise information is conducted, and then a store proposes candidates of recommended merchandise to customers, already exists as a publicly known system.
As merchandise sales on the Internet expand, the kind of merchandise and the merchandise itself become complicated. Moreover, the customer has to view the merchandise information on the WWW in advance and has to judge which merchandise he should purchase, although in the past the customer could obtain explanations about merchandise and information necessary for his merchandise selection on a face-to-face sales basis in are tail store. Basic information such as specifications, appearance, precautions to be observed at the time of purchase and so on of these pieces of merchandise information are usually provided to customers, but in the case of the merchandise that is used in combination with multiple peripheral devices, as is the case with a personal computer, there is a problem of compatibility among the devices to be connected to one another. In particular, a question occurring at the time of purchase as to whether product A1 manufactured by A company and product B1 manufactured by B company can be connected and used is not made clear, in many cases, either in the merchandise information provided by A company or in that provided by B company. It is difficult, therefore, for a customer to obtain necessary information when selecting this kind of merchandise, increasingly resulting in problems like returning the purchased merchandise due to problems occurring after purchase.
In the case of apparel-related merchandise such as clothes and clothing accessories, when a customer selects the merchandise he wants to purchase from among many items of merchandise, it is difficult for him to express his tastes in simple terms, even if an interface is provided to individually select merchandise merely by color, shape and kind. Instead, which merchandise he really wants to purchase is often not determined yet at the time he is selecting it. So, he sometimes selects the merchandise he wants to purchase while actually perusing the merchandise. Also, the customer not only selects merchandise in each individual category like the shirt, skirt or bag category, but also his method for selecting merchandise becomes uniform, because he has not yet realized to select merchandise while considering the merchandise configuration like an accessory appropriate for “this suit” or an accessory suitable for “my image,” which used to prevail in face-to-face sales.
To solve such a problem as this, in the former case, for instance, each major manufacturer selects products manufactured by some other manufacturers as the ones which it will recommend to go with its own products, actually connects them, tests the operation of the connected products independently and provides customers with the merchandise information as part of its merchandise information. Or it offers to customers an example of constructing a system which comprises only its own products to help customers select suitable merchandise at the time of purchase. In reality, however, many customers want to use the said product to connect to another manufacturer's products to which they have already been introduced, so it is not easy to obtain the connectability of the products in the configuration of the products that they desire from only the merchandise information the manufacturer provides.
What can be commonly said from the two examples given above is that information currently available is chiefly merchandise information of each individual piece of merchandise, though a customer who purchases merchandise not only wants to purchase that merchandise individually when he purchases it, but also he wants to have information on the connectability of the merchandise to the product he has already purchased, or on the connectability between the merchandise he purchases now, or on the connectability of the said merchandise to products that he may purchase in the future, all of which are very important for him.
Now, let's think of the problems that occur on the part of the party who sells merchandise. If the seller tries to provide the customer who purchases merchandise with such merchandise information as mentioned above concerning the configuration of merchandise or examples of the combination of merchandise so that the customer can use the information for reference when selecting merchandise, the cost required for supplying the merchandise information with regard to the combination of merchandise becomes enormously high. In the case of the above-mentioned example of the combination of a personal computer with peripheral devices, there are such a large number of products manufactured by other manufacturers that it is practically impossible to confirm the operation of the products combined in various configurations. In addition, there are such variety in customer demand that a huge cost is incurred to listen to their demands and offer the configuration of merchandise that satisfies them, thus making it impossible to sell merchandise at a low price by suppressing the seller's margin of profit, which is a large merit of Internet shopping. Some manufacturers are making an attempt to automate this service within their own product lines, but the present situation is that almost no effective answer has yet been obtained for the combined configuration of a plurality of products manufactured by many manufacturers.
This invention relates to a purchase supporting system and method wherein a seller provides a customer with information on the configuration and combination of merchandise at the time of purchase so that the customer can avoid selecting a wrong configuration which results in failure of the operation of the purchased products, or in purchasing unnecessary merchandise, and which, when the customer selects the merchandise he wants to purchase from among a number of pieces of merchandise, helps the customer select such a kind of merchandise that he cannot express his desire for merely by designating simple selection parameters required for an individual piece of merchandise, and provides him with merchandise information by suppressing the cost required for providing the merchandise configuration, which is a merit of the party selling merchandise.